The voluptuous actress, 35, is getting compliments all around these days. She was nominated for an Emmy this year for her work as super secretary Joan Holloway on the AMC drama, and she’s also found herself becoming a source of inspiration for curvy women everywhere.

“When the attention started to be about my figure, I was surprised, because it wasn’t something I was focused on,” she says. “And then it became very positive, and people were saying very nice things.”

She recalls one fan approaching her during Mad Men‘s first season and saying, ” ‘Excuse me, I just want to tell you that I watch your show, and you make me feel better about myself. I am a curvy woman, and you’ve made me feel sexy and beautiful.’ I got teary eyed.”

Hendricks’s husband, actor Geoffrey Arend, whom she married last year, is impressed by his wife’s positive influence on other women. “I remember Geoffrey saying, ‘That’s what you’re doing for people. That’s amazing,’ ” Hendricks says. “And I said, ‘I’m just trying to be a good actress and trying to tell a story, but if this is the sidebar, all this positivity, then that is awesome.’ ”

For Hendricks, it all goes back to her upbringing, when she was taught to have a healthy body image. “My mother never said to lose weight,” she says. “Diets were never a big deal. My mom was always beautiful and voluptuous and curvy, and I always thought she was gorgeous.”